


The Eloquence of Silence

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Shameless Smut, Temporarily Lost Voice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 10:20:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7311040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe brings home a bronchial infection that turns into laryngitis, and loses his voice. He does not cope well.</p>
<p>This is all beautifullights' fault.</p>
<p>Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eloquence of Silence

The absolute worst part of the bronchial infection Poe brought home from his last supply run isn’t the cough - though that’s miserable - or the fever - though that’s unpleasant - or even the nasty-tasting goo Doctor Kalonia gives him to _deal_ with the cough and the fever.

No, the worst part is that the bronchial infection turns into laryngitis, and Poe - Poe Dameron, who is very nearly never silent - loses his voice.

It’s honestly almost worse than losing a _limb_. Poe could maybe do without a foot, after all, but his _voice_ \- that’s his first and best tool. He talks to get out of trouble (and into it), he talks to make friends and to keep them, he tells stories, he sings, he encourages his lovers - he can’t _manage_ without his voice.

Oh, he can get by alright with pantomime and scrawled notes for the basics, the easy things like what he wants for breakfast and who should go up on patrol and what tool he needs next for X-Wing maintenance, but he can’t join the chatter over dinner, or the singing after dinner, or babble to his lovers the way he knows they love. It’s just kriffing _miserable_ , is what it is.

He’s only slightly comforted by the fact that everyone else seems just as disconcerted and unhappy as he is - “Kriffing hell, how did you sneak up on me, it’s not _right_ for you to be kriffing quiet!” Iolo yelps one afternoon, flailing at the top of a ladder - but honestly even the mild amusement of such moments is nowhere _near_ enough to make up for the fact that he _can’t kriffing talk_.

“A week, perhaps,” Doctor Kalonia assures him. “Provided you don’t _try_ to talk and strain your throat worse.”

A whole kriffing _week_ of silence. Poe hasn’t been quiet that long since - since _ever_. He has never in his _life_ been silent that long. He’s going to go _mad_.

He makes it three days before he’s about to jitter out of his _skin_ \- he’s grounded, on top of everything else, because he can’t give orders without a godsdamned kriffing _voice_ \- and then he spends far too long in the gym and strains every _other_ muscle in his kriffing body, it feels like, and he’s lying in bed with his head under a pillow, feeling very sorry for himself, when his lovers come in.

“Poe,” Finn says, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We’ve had an idea - will you let us show you?”

Poe comes out from under his pillow, because no matter how miserable he’s feeling he will _always_ do anything Finn asks of him, and Finn holds up a - a gag?

Poe arches an eyebrow dubiously at his lovers. Rey shrugs. “All his idea,” she says.

“I know you can’t talk,” Finn says slowly, “but if you were wearing this, it wouldn’t be that you _can’t_ talk, it’d be that you were _choosing_ not to talk, to be good for us.”

Poe turns that over in his head. That...that sort of changes the shape of the problem, doesn’t it? He’d be _choosing_ silence. They’ve played that game before. He’s crap at it, but it’s a lot of fun whether he’s good or not - hell, being naughty is sometimes _more_ fun. Rey has an inventively filthy mind.

He shrugs and nods, and Finn very carefully ties the gag into place. Poe can actually feel himself relaxing. It’s not that he _can’t_ talk. It’s that he’s not supposed to, and he’s being good for his lovers. He’s being so good.

“Damn, you’re beautiful,” Rey says quietly. “Kare said you’d been at the heavy bag for kriffing _hours_. Want a massage?”

Poe nods mutely, and somehow the gag means that not being able to respond verbally turns from a crippling deficit to something warm and sweet: he’s being good. He’s making Rey smile that tiny, lovely smile that only he and Finn ever get to see.

They spread him out on his front and then there are warm hands on him, strong and sure, rubbing the ache from his strained muscles with long gentle strokes, and Poe sort of melts against the sheets and bites the gag so he won’t make noise - won’t _try_ to make noise, anyhow.

“You’re so good for us,” Finn says softly. Poe would moan happily if he could, and for a moment the loss of his voice hits him again, but - no, he’s not supposed to make noise. He’s supposed to be quiet, to be good. He’s being good.

He’s not aching anymore by the time they’re done - Jedi training causes young Jedi to learn the arts of massage early and well, for survival reasons - and he’s also not sure he’s capable of _moving_. Poe feels rather as if he’s made of very happy, very well-cooked pasta. His lovers are laughing at him, but that’s okay; they’re also curled around him, warm and perfect, arms slung over his back and legs over his waist and cheeks pillowed on his sprawled-out arms. Poe can forgive a lot when he’s being snuggled by two of the most attractive people it has ever been his good fortune to encounter.

He falls asleep while he’s still trying to figure out whether it’s worth trying to roll over or not.

*

When Poe wakes up, he’s not gagged anymore, because his lovers are far too conscientious to let him sleep with something in his mouth, but as soon as he starts to roll over a broad hand covers his mouth and Finn’s voice, low and sweet in his ear, says, “You’re going to be quiet for us, right, sweetheart?”

Poe nods vigorously.

Finn rolls him the rest of the way over, keeping a hand over Poe’s mouth, and then Finn and Rey grin down at him and proceed to do their very best to make Poe lose his godsdamned _mind_. They are both very intelligent people, Poe’s lovers, and very good with their hands, and it took them very little time when they first got together to learn all the sensitive places on Poe’s body, all the ways to turn him into a gasping, desperate _mess_. They use them all today, but the whole time, one or the other of them keeps a hand over Poe’s mouth, reminding him that his part in this is to stay _silent_ \- and when there is no hand muffling him, it is because one of them has caught him in a deep and drugging kiss.

Poe does try to reciprocate, when and as he can, but Finn is much stronger than he is and takes great pleasure in pinning him to the bed, and Rey is terrifyingly bendy and takes great pleasure in teasing the hell out of Poe by staying just out of his reach, and the long and short of it is that he comes with Finn’s tongue down his throat and Rey’s hand on his cock, utterly silent save for the hoarse pleading whine he cannot quite prevent, and sags back onto the bed, gasping for air.

He still can’t speak, but he’s not quite as agitated for the rest of the day. Hard to be agitated when you’ve come so hard the world goes white around you, after all. Or when your lovers make time to come up and kiss you half-senseless every few hours.

Still, Poe starts making plans for once he’s got his voice back. He knows exactly what he’s going to say to make his lovers kriffing _beg_. It’s going to be so much fun.

He loves them so.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr at imaginarygolux.tumblr.com! Come say hi!


End file.
